Jesse Pinkman
Jesse Bruce Pinkman is the partner of Walter White in the methamphetamine drug trade. In high school, Jesse was a small-time methamphetamine user, manufacturer, and dealer. He was also an inattentive student in Walter White's chemistry class. In his mid-20s, Jesse became Walt's business partner in the meth trade. Before his partnership with Walt, he added a little Chili Powder to make his methamphetamine stand out in the market under the pseudonym "Cap'n Cook". Walt insisted on making a pure product, however, and thus ended the chili powder addition and patronizingly taught Jesse the procedures to how to make "proper" meth. Walt often treated Jesse like a foolish son in constant need of stern correction. Jesse's own family kicked him out because of his drug use. Despite the friction between them, he and Walt have a deep bond of loyalty. Like Walt, Jesse is horrified by the brutality at the higher levels of the drug trade, but does what he thinks is necessary. He wrestles with feelings of guilt about the deaths, all drug-related, of people he's been associated with, especially his girlfriend Jane Margolis. He often attended Narcotics Anonymous meetings to help deal with these feelings. History Background information Jesse Bruce Pinkman was born in September 1984 into an upper middle-class family in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Jesse has also met Emilio Koyama in his elementary school. Jesse attended J. P. Wynne High School and was a poor student, largely due to his inattention and apathy. Walter White, who Jesse almost always calls "Mr. White," was his chemistry teacher, and flunked him in his class. Walt himself later tells Jesse that he "never thought much" of him, though he did frequently write Apply Yourself on Jesse's graded quiz papers and, when meeting Hank Schrader, his mother said "Mr. White must have seen some potential in Jesse, he really tried to motivate him, he was one of the few teachers who cared." In high school, Jesse was already a methamphetamine user, manufacturer, and dealer. After being forced to leave his parents' residence, presumably because of his drug use, Jesse moved in with his Aunt Jenny, whom he took care of until her death from lung cancer; afterwards, he was allowed to stay in her home, whose ownership fell to Jesse's parents. Jesse has been long estranged from his parents due to his drug abuse and lifestyle. Jesse has a much younger over-achieving brother Jake Pinkman with whom he gets along, despite their age and aptitude difference and Jesse's reputation with his folks. In fact, Jesse seems to emotionally connect with children in general and avoids exposing them to his own destructive behavior, even when to do so would be criminally inept and risky. Season 1 Jesse quickly found his way into the drug scene, cooking and distributing his own signature Chili P meth with his partner Emilio Koyama. When Walt accompanies his brother-in-law, Hank Schrader, as a ride-a-long during a DEA drug bust, he spots Jesse running away from the scene; he subsequently realizes that Jesse is "Cap'n Cook", a methamphetamine dealer Hank is investigating . Walt uses the high school's student records to track down Jesse, blackmailing his former pupil into letting him enter the distribution side of the illegal drug trade. Walt plans to use his knowledge of chemistry to cook potent crystal meth that Jesse will distribute, giving him $7,000 to purchase an RV which will be used as a rolling meth lab . It is revealed in Season 3 that Jesse wasted most of the money while partying at a strip club, but one of his friends, Christian "Combo" Ortega, let Jesse purchase his family's RV for $1,400. Jesse is impressed with Walt's chemically pure product and approaches Domingo Gallardo "Krazy 8" Molina, an Albuquerque meth distributor, over the prospect of doing business with him. Unbeknownst to Jesse, Krazy-8 is a DEA informant who is suspicious of the proposal. When Krazy-8 drives to the desert to meet the duo, his partner, Emilio Koyama, recognizes Walt from the previous DEA bust. When they attempt to kill him, Walt produces phosphine gas that kills Emilio and incapacitates Krazy-8, allowing him and and the unconscious Jesse to flee . onto Emilio's corpse in his bathtub]] Walt has Jesse shop for a plastic container in which he plans to dissolve Emilio's body with hydrofluoric acid. Jesse—too ignorant and headstrong to realize that hydrofluoric acid does not eat through plastic—dissolves the body in an upstairs bathtub, letting the acid burn a hole in the bathroom floor and drop Emilio's bloody remains into a downstairs hallway . After cleaning up the scene and disposing of Krazy-8 (who is kept captive in Jesse's basement for several days before Walt can bring himself to murder him), the duo are forced to sell their meth on their own. Walt and Jesse move their lab from the RV to Jesse's basement. "]] Jesse and Walt agree after their grim misadventure to forego any further association . While meeting with his friends, Christian "Combo" Ortega and Skinny Pete, Jesse drugs himself with the meth him and Walt cooked. After becoming paranoid, he drops by his parents' house and stay there for some time, until their maid finds weed hidden in a vase. Jesse's parents kick him out again, believing that it was his weed, but in fact it belonged his younger brother, Jake Pinkman . Jesse looks for a job and meets his longtime friend, Brandon "Badger" Mayhew. They decide to team up and try to cook more meth in the RV to sell, but Jesse is unable to reach the same quality level of Walt's meth. Jesse then visits Walt at his house, and the two decide to partner up once again, since Walt realizes he needs the money and Jesse realizes he needs Walt's help to make a decent product. . ]] Their product becomes a big enough presence in Albuquerque's drug scene that it becomes the focus of an investigation by Hank. Unsatisfied with the minuscule amount of money Jesse is collecting, Walt convinces him to find a high-end distributor for their meth. Skinny Pete puts him in contact with Tuco Salamanca, a powerful Mexican drug kingpin operating in Albuquerque. However, at their first meeting, the psychopathic Tuco brutally beats Jesse and lands him in the hospital . After Walter strong-arms Tuco into a lucrative, albeit unstable, partnership, he and Jesse expand their operations after Walt promised to Tuco that he would bring him two pounds of meth, more than him and Jesse can ever produce with the materials they have. is beaten to death by Tuco]] The two end up stealing a large drum of methylamine, enabling them to produce large quantities of meth for Tuco, even though the meth now has a blue color because of the different ingredient, it is still the same high quality product. Their first batch of blue meth is successfully sold to Tuco, but during the meeting, one of Tuco's henchmen speaks out of turn, and Tuco viciously beats him to death for no reason, while Walt and Jesse watch everything horrified . Season 2 After the DEA conducts a raid on his Albuquerque operations, the increasingly paranoid Tuco believes that Walt and Jesse are set to betray him . Tuco kidnaps the pair and takes them to a remote house in the desert, where he cares for his infirm uncle, Hector "Tio" Salamanca. There, Walt and Jesse are held against their will for several days, with Tuco stating his intention of taking them to a "superlab" in Mexico. Walter had already seen danger coming and attempt to poison Tuco with ricin, but are unsuccessful when Jesse tells Tuco that their new batch of "meth" has chili powder in it. However, the two escape after a struggle with Tuco. Walt and Jesse flee the scene, and watch as Hank—who has been guided to the house by chance while searching for the missing Walt—confronts and fatally shoots Tuco . Walt and Jesse wander through the desert before hitching a ride back to civilization. Realizing that it wouldn't be long before all kinds of cops would be after him, Jesse seeks help from his friend, Brandon "Badger" Mayhew. They move the lab from Jesse's basement back to the RV. The RV is subsequently towed away by Badger's cousin, Clovis, and stored on his lot for a $1,000 storage fee, which Jesse can only pay half of upfront. The next day, Jesse awakens to find his mother evicting him from his home, since his family's lawyer informed him they legally own the house and have discovered that he was cooking meth in the basement. Unable to find a friend, he gets his remaining few belongings and his motorcycle stolen as well, so he breaks into Clovis' lot and passes out in the RV . Jesse eventually resolves to put himself back together. He buys an inconspicuous Toyota Tercel and finds a new apartment. The landlord, Jane Margolis, is a part-time tattoo-artist and also, as Jesse later finds out, a recovering addict. Living right next to Jesse in the same two-family building, it's not long before she and Jesse become romantically involved. Jane, however, tries to hide this relationship from her father, Donald Margolis, who is the property owner of their building. Jesse spirals into a drug-fueled depression when Combo is murdered by rival drug dealers. He is introduced to heroin by Jane, who relapses back into addiction . Jesse becomes perpetually high and lethargic, nearly costing Walt a $1.2 million drug transaction with the powerful meth distributor Gustavo Fring; this leads Walt to withhold Jesse's half of the money until he enters rehab, causing a falling out between the two. When Jane learns about the money, she blackmails Walt into giving Jesse his share, hoping to use the money to escape to New Zealand. However, Jane overdoses and suffocates on her own vomit shortly afterward; Walt is present at the time of her death, but does not intervene and watches her die. Jesse blames himself for Jane's death and becomes self-destructively despondent. Walt rescues Jesse from a crack house and checks him in to a rehabilitation clinic . Season 3 Jesse begins to undergo a transformation of sorts. After having left rehab clean and sober, he is still without friends. A frequent recurrence is the establishment of Jesse's lonesomeness, magnified now thanks to Walter by his false sense of guilt with the death (sic killing) of Jane, as well as his split from Walt, who has gone on to cook for Gustavo Fring full-time. Jesse has garnered the attention of a different sort. Agent Hank Schrader, after a lead puts him on the prowl for RVs, is convinced (and correct) that the RV belonging to Jesse is a roving meth lab. Upon tailing Jesse, he finally finds it, only to be outsmarted in the end by Walt and a very law-savvy salvage yard owner. Walt (with the help of Saul Goodman and having Hanks' personal cellphone number) draws Hank away from the RV by giving him a fake call about Marie being rushed to the hospital. The ruse gets Hank out of there long enough for them to destroy the RV and all evidence therein. Hank's frustration and rage are now aimed squarely at Pinkman, whom he blames for the bogus phone call, and using his family to distract him from the bust. Once again, we find Jesse in the hospital, this time recovering from wounds inflicted upon him by Hank as revenge for using his family to game him. While in the hospital, Jesse is visited by Walt, who is surprised that his manipulation of Hank has resulted in this major damage to Pinkman. Upon hearing of Jesse's future plans to purchase another RV and cook once more, and also a token of loyalty, Walt convinces Gus to replace Gale Boetticher (his previous lab assistant) with Jesse. Now, Jesse and Walt are back together cooking as the team they once were, and making considerably more money. Jesse is Walter's only ally. After shacking up with a crack whore named Wendy for weeks at the Crystal Palace, Jesse becomes involved with a young mother, Andrea Cantillo, whom he meets through his Narcotics Anonymous meetings. In doing so, he discovers the identity of Combo's assassin, who turns out to be Andrea's younger brother, acting on the orders of two gang bangers that happen also to be selling Walt and Jesse's product. Pinkman concocts a plan to poison the two, using Wendy's lunch delivery as his vector and the ricin made earlier to kill Tuco. Unbeknownst to Jesse, the two cohorts are protected employees of Gus, and after a tense meeting wherein Walt betrays Jesse to Gus, Jesse is forced by Mike to belay his assassination attempt. As a token, Gus orders the two rival dealers to quit using children in their line of work. Tomas, the 11 year old child-soldier, is then promptly terminated. It seems thugs like these two interpret "no more children" quite literally. Upon hearing this news, Jesse sets out to finish these two murderous child killers for good. After breaking his sobriety by snorting some crystal in his car, he is strapped and ready for vengeance as he approaches the two thugs on the street. Out of nowhere, Walt saves the day by maniacally running them down with his car, beating the surviving dealer to his fallen pistol and unflinchingly executing him on the spot with a point blank shot to the side of his head. Walt advises Jesse to "Run". After a very tense meeting with Gus, Walt agrees to return to work, telling Gus that Jesse is on the run and will "no longer be a problem." With Gale reinstated as his lab partner again, Walt discovers Gus' plan of having Gale master the "Blue Sky" formula, meaning Gus would no longer have any need for Walt. After meeting with Jesse, who was, in truth, hiding out in town at an abandoned laser tag facility owned by Saul, the two agree that Gale has to die. Walt asks Jesse to follow Gale and find out his address, telling Jesse that he'll do the rest. Unfortunately, on his way to do the deed, he is stopped by one of Gus' henchmen, Victor, who escorts him to the superlab. Telling Walt that there was some sort of chemical spill in the lab, upon seeing Mike waiting there for him, it becomes clear that this is to be his execution. With his life at stake, he offers up Jesse in exchange for his own life, saying that he can call and find out Jesse's location. Walt uses this opportunity to quickly relay the message that Jesse must now kill Gale and he must do it immediately. The season ends with Jesse arriving at Gale's apartment, trembling with tears in his eyes as he levels his gun at a pleading Gale and pulls the trigger, killing him. Season 4 Immediately after Gale's murder, Walter and Jesse are brought back to the superlab, where Gus slices Victor's throat with a box cutter in a gruesome show of force. Jesse ignores Walter's fears that Gus is planning to kill them, preferring to escape his guilt by setting up a perpetual rave at his house. He also places a large amount of drug money in Andrea's mailbox, urging her to leave Albuquerque with her young son, Brock Cantillo. Andrea says goodbye to him and he waves to Brock as her car pulls away. When the party disperses, Jesse is seen curled against the speaker, slowly breaking down as he turns the volume all the way up. Jesse becomes increasingly indifferent to his own welfare, stealing meth from the superlab to fuel his drug-laden parties. Mike informs Gus of Jesse's recklessness, but instead of ordering his execution, Gus has Mike take Jesse on an errand to collect drop money. On the last pickup, Jesse sees a man approaching the car with a shotgun and attempts to run over the man and ultimately rams the man's car and drives away. It is revealed that the man with the shotgun was working for Mike and this was all just a test for Jesse, a test which he passed prompting Mike to call him a hero . A relieved Walt finds Jesse in the lab where Jesse tells him that he will be doing more work with Mike. When Walt informs Jesse of his suspicion that the alley incident was a setup, Jesse reacts with hostility, while Walt declares his belief that Gus is trying to wedge their partnership. During Jesse's next assignment with Mike involving the retrieval of a stolen bag of product, Jesse shows some craftiness by getting one meth addict fixate on digging a hole in the yard and disarms another wielding a shotgun, which draws praise from Gus. Shortly after this point, Jesse has resumed a relationship with Andrea and her son Brock, whom Jesse treats as a son. Walt tasks Jesse with killing Gus by the use of a vial of ricin, which Jesse hides in a cigarette. Later on, when Gus is having a meeting with members of the cartel, Jesse considers spiking his coffee with the ricin, but refrains from doing so upon realizing that he could poison the third parties present. At one of his NA meetings, Jesse breaks down and reveals that he is only attending to sell everybody meth. Walt pushes Jesse to try to set up a meeting when he learns that Hank is investigating Gus, but backs off when he sees a text message implying that Jesse has been lying about not meeting Gus since the diner. Walt uses a bug to track Jesse's vehicle, learning that he had dinner at Gus's house the night before. Walt confronts Jesse about his betrayal, causing a fight, which Jesse wins. The pair have a violent falling out as a result. Gus and Mike take Jesse on a trip to Mexico in order to have him teach Walt's formula to the cartel's chemists. Impressed with Jesse's skill, Gus seemingly arranges to leave Jesse behind with the cartel. However, during a party, Gus uses a poisoned bottle of tequila to kill off the cartel's leadership, including Don Eladio Vuente . Jesse shoots and kills Joaquin Salamanca, who had just shot Mike. Jesse drives Gus and Mike away from the crime scene. Afterwards, Gus offers to hire Jesse as his full-time cook. Jesse accepts on the condition that Gus spare Walt's life. When Walt's wife Skyler seeks protection from the DEA, Gus uses this information to portray Walt as an informant in an attempt to further the gap between him and Jesse. Walt goes to Jesse's house to plead for help, but Jesse throws him off his property . Shortly afterwards, Brock falls mysteriously ill. Jesse seems to correctly guess that Brock has been poisoned by ricin, arousing Andrea's suspicions. Jesse immediately assumes Walt is behind the poisoning, showing up at his house to confront him at gunpoint. However, Walt convinces Jesse that it was Gus who poisoned Brock, reminding him of his propensity for killing children. In the hospital, Jesse is then taken in for questioning for his knowledge of ricin, and remains in custody while Walt struggles for options. Saul visits Jesse, who tells him about Hector Salamanca and Gus's frequent visits to the retirement home to taunt him with his victory in the struggle against the cartel. Saul relays this to Walt, who then visits Hector and enlists his help. Gus is subsequently killed when Hector activates a pipe bomb beneath the elderly drug lord's wheelchair. After learning of Gus' death, Walt storms the superlab and rescues Jesse. After they destroy the superlab, Jesse reveals that Brock was not poisoned by ricin, but by poisonous Lily of the Valley berries. Jesse realizes that Gus couldn't have poisoned Brock, but Walt assures him that killing Gus was the only acceptable course of action. The final scene of the fourth season shows a potted Lily of the Valley in Walt's backyard, suggesting that Walt had poisoned Brock all along. Season 5 In the New Mexico desert, Jesse steps between Mike Ehrmantraut and Walter White to cool down their heated argument over Gus' murder. He again states his position. He helps Walt convince Mike to destroy the security footage from the superlab instead of skipping town. He works with the two men and Old Joe to use a giant magnet to destroy the evidence inside the police locker at the APD HQ. The ploy works and the men escape in Mike's towncar. He is seen crying and over thinking the theory someone took the ricin cigarette he "lost", Walt tells him he found it in the vacuum, to which Jesse calms down. He is with Walt when they talk to Mike, and Mike says that Jesse doesn't see Walt's dark side and that Walt is a time bomb, "tick tick ticking...", and that he doesn't want to be around for the boom, Jesse convinces him to join eventually and they become partners in the business. Later, when talking to Saul, Jesse tries to convince Walt they cook in a simple place, but Walt disagrees. Jesse reveals to the two that he can't find methylamine, and Walt tells him to keep looking. Personality Jesse is impulsive, hedonistic, and uneducated, but also personable and possesses street-smarts. He talks in playful slang and likes to wear garish clothing that follows the latest trends in youth culture, play video games, listen to loud music, take recreational drugs, and drive cars outfitted with gadgets to make them "bounce". When Jesse has money, he usually spends it throwing long-running parties for friends as well as strangers or on items like a giant-screen television for his home. While Jesse was not a very good student, his mother said that Walter White saw potential in him. Jesse would later deliver on that potential, producing a product on his own which Walt begrudgingly concedes is as good as what Walt himself produced. The meth that Jesse cooks in front of the Cartel chemists has a purity of 96.2%, making it possibly superior to that which was produced by Gale Boetticher who held an advanced degree in chemistry. In "Say My Name," Walter refers to himself and Pinkman as "the two best meth cooks in America." Jesse has a serious reaction to killing Gale Boetticher, who, despite being a meth cook, is quite a decent and innocent person. Jesse does not take the experience lightly, that moment where he becomes a murderer. At first, Jesse has somewhat of a delayed reaction; when Walt asks Jesse "Seriously, are you all right?", he is eating pancakes and bacon and seems completely fine in light of the terrible experience he has been through . However, it becomes clear that he is damaged: it presents itself in that he doesn’t want to be alone. He needs loud music; he needs to be surrounded by other people. In this sense, he needs to do anything and everything possible to take his mind off this terrible experience—hence the world’s biggest, or longest-lasting, party that he throws for himself . Murders commited by Jesse *'Gale Boetticher': Shot in the face so that Walt and Jesse would be the only Meth manufacturers available . *'Joaquin Salamanca': Shot to death . Quotes Trivia *In the original pilot script, the character that would become Jesse was named "Marion Dupree." *Jesse's preferred brand of cigarettes are Parliaments. In Season 4 however, commercial cigarettes were replaced with TV cigarettes, as we see Jesse smoking Wilmingtons, which only exists within the realm of Breaking Bad. *He currently drives a beat down, red, 80s-era Toyota Tercel 4WD station wagon. *Jesse is 5' 7" according to his mugshot. Gus's doctor says that Jesse has A- blood type, is 25 years old, 70 kg (154 lbs), 180 cm (5'11"), and is allergic to erythromycin (a common antibiotic) . *Jesse was originally scheduled to be killed at the end of Season 1. Before then however, Vince Gilligan recognized his excellent potential and acting, and decided to keep him on. No-Doze took his place, being punched to death by Tuco Salamanca in "A No-Rough-Stuff-Type Deal". *Over the course of the series, Jesse's skill at producing meth has greatly increased, to the point where he can create meth that is 96.2% pure, on par with Gale Boetticher, who has admitted that his capability is 96%. *Jesse is one of two characters (along with Walter White) to have appeared in every episode thus far. *Jesse was the drummer of his old band, TwaughtHammer. *Jesse appears to be fond of the color red: All his own vehicles were red, his furniture and clothing usually have red in them, also his cellphone and his Roomba are red. es:Jesse Pinkman Pinkman, Jesse Category:Gangsters Category:Murderers Category:Walt's drug empire